There was a time when I was angry at the whole world.
I felt wronged and taken advantage of. I screamed at God that there was no justice in His world, that He had abandoned me.
It was true. He had abandoned me. But I had abandoned Him first.
Anger is closely tied to the command “Justice, justice shall you pursue.” Most of the time, it grows from the feeling that someone has wronged us and that we have every right to demand justice.
That may all be true. But there is so much we cannot understand.
Justice is one of the gates on the path to closeness with God, but it is not the highest. When you truly want to be free, anger and the need to be right begin to lose their appeal.
When you are angry with someone, you are pushing against something. That resistance separates you from yourself, from the Creator, and from unity.
I came to understand that I could not reach the place I longed for while holding on to anger: a place of faith (emunah) in the Creator, the universe, and Creation, where I could feel the oneness of everything. Not even when I was right.
I discovered that being right came at too high a cost. My anger left me right, but it also left my heart closed, clenched, and cut off.
Then I decided that I wanted to be free.
What’s done cannot be undone, and my heart is with everyone who has suffered an injustice. But beautiful souls, we are not the Creator. There is justice in His world; we simply cannot grasp all of it.
Let go for your own sake. If other people behave badly, that is their responsibility. Ours is to keep our hearts open. When my heart is open, I don’t have to judge or criticize anyone, and I don’t have to play God in other people’s lives. My world becomes lighter and happier because unity is worth far more than being right.
One practice that helps me draw closer to the Creator is imagining that He dedicates songs to me. Every morning, I play a love song and hear it as a song from the Creator. It creates a loving, intimate bond between us. He dedicates songs to me, and I’m in love with life.
Try it. I promise it works.
Episode summary
In episode 49 of The Truth Hurts (HaEmet Ko’evet), Gili and Tal begin with the challenge of finding joy in a difficult season. As Purim approaches, they discuss what the month of Adar reveals about what we feel is missing, and Gili introduces an evening devoted to the hidden spiritual meaning of the Book of Esther.
The heart of the episode is a listener’s story of a painful injustice and the anger she cannot release. Gili draws on her own years of anger, the support she received, and the physical suffering she associates with that period. She asks what happens when the need to be right becomes another prison, closing the heart and separating us from ourselves, the Creator, and the unity we want to experience.
This is not an argument for passivity. Gili distinguishes between releasing the past and allowing someone to harm or exploit us in the future. She also shares a Hasidic story about justice and reincarnation, reflects on a workshop about releasing anger and resentment, and ends with a personal practice: hearing a favorite song as a love song from the Creator.
Episode transcript
The episode is in Hebrew. The transcript below is presented in edited English.
Tal: Good morning, Gili.
Gili: Good morning, Tal.
Tal: How are you?
Gili: Good.
Tal: Wonderful. I want to follow up on something from our last episode. You said that during Adar, despite all the difficult things we’re going through, we have to focus on joy and on what we want to repair. It’s a hard time, but we have to rise above it.
Gili: It’s very simple. We said that Adar highlights what we feel is missing, so we need to find joy in what we already have.
Tal: That’s what I wanted to tell you: it works.
Gili: That’s wonderful. The universe is perfect; you’ve given me exactly the opening I needed.
You’re right. It comes down to where we direct our attention, and sometimes our focus slips. When I stay focused, it really does work.
Since we’re talking about Adar, I want to mention Purim, one of the most powerful holidays in our tradition. I usually hold a special evening for Purim, and I’m doing it again this year. The evening (in Hebrew) will take place on Wednesday, March 20, at the end of this month. The details are below for anyone who wants to understand Purim’s deeper spiritual meaning.
What does the Megillah, the Scroll of Esther, reveal? What is Esther hiding? What are all of us hiding?
It will be a warm, fascinating evening in which I explore Purim through Jewish mysticism and offer practical ways for all of us to rise spiritually.
Tal: As usual, you’ve convinced me. I’ll be there.
Gili: So, Tal, what are we talking about today?
Tal: I collected several questions this past week, but one stood out. A listener contacted me and asked if we could talk. I called her back, and as we spoke, I sensed that more than anything, she needed to be heard.
She told me about a terrible injustice she had suffered. I won’t share the details because they’re deeply personal, but I could hear the anger boiling up in her throat. She’s a devoted listener, and she simply cannot get past the anger or rise above it. For her, it feels unbearably hard.
I wanted to bring her question here because I’m sure many other people are living with the same struggle, and I genuinely want to hear what you have to say.
Gili: This touches all of us. I don’t think anyone goes through life without being wronged. At heart, this is a question about anger.
For most of us, anger is intimately connected to justice and to our certainty that we are right. Have you noticed that when you’re angry with someone, it is usually because you feel you have been wronged? Someone hurt me. Someone took advantage of me. Someone did something terrible to me, and now I need to get even or restore what is right.
We live in a world where stories of injustice never end. Let’s begin by acknowledging that.
Spiritual teachings tell us to overcome anger, yet they also teach us to pursue justice. The Torah itself says, “Justice, justice shall you pursue.” We are a society that holds justice sacred, built on values of justice and equality.
But we also say that unity stands above justice. That’s a sweeping statement, and not an easy one to understand. Let’s unpack it and see if we can help this listener.
Justice is one of the highest levels we are asked to reach on the path of spiritual growth. Acting justly is one of the gates along that path. The problem is that we often get stuck there.
I know that I’m right. I know that I’ve been wronged. I keep being right, and I remain in exactly the same place.
If you truly want to be free, something has to change. When you are trapped in a negative state, consumed by thoughts of what was done to you and how terrible or contemptible it was, your anger and certainty that you are right begin to matter less than your freedom.
I want to say this clearly: some people have endured genuinely horrific experiences. I am not offering empty words.
Something happened to me in the past that felt profoundly unjust. By any ordinary measure, I had been wronged, and everyone close to me saw it too.
At that time, I had a therapist who helped me a great deal. I know this is a podcast about mental health, and I am not trying to persuade anyone to come to me. I am encouraging you to find someone who can support you through a process like this.
To the listener who wrote to us: I understand that you experienced severe trauma and injustice and that you’re carrying painful feelings. I’ll tell you what I went through in case you recognize some of yourself in it.
I remember sitting across from my therapist, furious. I felt that something had been done to me that simply should never be done. I kept asking: Where is the justice? How can this be just? Eventually that question became: Where is God? How could He allow something like this to happen?
My therapist would sit across from me and say, “Gili, let go. Let go. Let it go.”
This went on for months. Honestly, it went on for years. She would tell me, “It’s stuck in your throat. You aren’t digesting it. Digest it. Swallow it. The blow has already landed. Now digest it, and let’s move forward. You keep trying to throw it back up.”
The more you fight something, the more tightly bound to it you become.
At first, I was angry with the people involved. Very angry. Then I entered a second stage: I separated the people from their actions. I told myself that I wasn’t angry with the people; I was angry with what they had done.
Eventually I saw that it made no difference. Whether I was angry with the people or their actions, the anger itself divided me.
When you are angry, you push against something, and that separates you from it. Anger becomes a way of defining what you are not: “I’m not like that. I would never behave that way. People should never do such things.”
But what did that do for me? It didn’t bring unity. It brought separation. I was pouring all my energy into defining what was not me.
My therapist kept returning to one question: “Gili, where do you want to go?”
Every time, sitting on her couch, I would say, “I want to be free.”
I understood that I wanted to reach a place where I could embrace the universe, the Creator, the Holy One, blessed be He, whatever name you use. I wanted to experience the oneness of everything.
Yet whenever I held on to anger, even when I was right, I cut myself off. I lived that way for years, my heart closed, clenched, and disconnected. I could clearly feel the effect on my body. It affects each person differently.
I had bacterial pneumonia seven times. The fifth time I arrived at Ichilov Hospital, the head of the department looked at me and said, “In my entire career, I have never seen anyone alive after five bouts of bacterial pneumonia.” I had it seven times. I felt as though I had no air. None.
Nor did it affect only my body. It touched every part of my life. When anger estranges you from life, even justified anger, you commit another injustice against yourself. In the end, we want to care for ourselves.
My fixation on justice, my judgment and criticism, and my anger all grew from a sense of helplessness: How did I end up here? How could someone do this to me? How did I allow it to happen?
By the end of that loop, you find that you are angry with yourself. That’s part of it too.
Tal: I know that turn. You’re angry with someone else, and then suddenly you realize the anger has turned back on you.
Gili: I think everyone knows it.
Tal: And then the anger becomes self-punishment.
Gili: Exactly. I also discovered something about my lifelong attachment to justice. I was born on the ninth day of the ninth month. We won’t go deeply into numerology, but people connected with the number nine are said to have a very strong sense of justice. We can become justice warriors.
At some point, I understood that being right had become too painful. It cost me more than it was worth. I wanted to be part of the flow of the universe, close to the Creator, and part of unity.
Tal: I understand that completely. My mother says I was a justice warrior from birth. She still laughs about how two children would be fighting on the playground, and I would walk over, intervene, and announce which one was right.
Gili: And do you know why? You were born in the ninth month. In numerology, nine represents truth. The Hebrew word emet, “truth,” reduces to nine. Turn nine upside down and you get six; in the same system, sheker, “falsehood,” reduces to six. That gives you six and nine. My date gives me nine and six, but we won’t keep everyone here with a numerology lesson.
The point is that I have known this pull toward truth and justice since childhood. People did wrong me. They truly hurt me, and I am sure I have hurt others too. An injustice took place.
But I finally understood that anger would not bring me closer to the Creator. I could knock on every door and present God with every argument and justification, saying, “But this isn’t fair.” The door still closed in my face. You cannot enter carrying anger.
Slowly, I learned to respond differently. When anger rose, instead of nurturing, watering, and feeding it, I would say: Enough. This is not taking me where I truly want to go. It’s another stop along the road, but it leads nowhere, even if I am right.
I am letting it go.
I also learned that I could oppose someone’s behavior without anger. Anger isn’t necessarily the right tool. I could let the feeling be there, then let it leave.
That was very hard because pride was involved. How dare they do that to me? How could they? My pride kept insisting that I was right.
My therapist wasn’t telling me to work on the relationship, meet with the people involved, or have a conversation in which we all admitted that we might have been wrong. That wasn’t her guidance.
She said, “Gili, give it up. Don’t work on it. Don’t try to improve it. Give it up. The blow has already landed. Swallow it. Stop fighting, even when you believe you’re right. Let go.”
It was extremely hard, and my heart is with anyone facing this. But I want you to know that I believe letting go is possible. I was able to do it because I decided I wanted to be free.
I decided to stop fighting what had already happened. It was hard, because I truly was right. But if you want to be free, and freedom means feeling well physically and emotionally, free of illness, the poison of anger, and victimhood, then my best advice is to let it go.
Let it go. If people behave badly, inappropriately, or disrespectfully, that is their responsibility. Our responsibility is to keep our hearts open. When our hearts are open, those people can change quickly too. I don’t have to judge or criticize them, and I don’t have to play God in their lives. Everyone can make their own choices; I simply will not absorb their behavior.
I have a workshop (in Hebrew) that will probably take place in March or April. It isn’t connected with Purim; it’s about releasing anger and resentment.
I didn’t create the workshop out of nowhere. It grew from years spent working through this exact struggle: feeling that anger was running my life, watching it descend into aggression and resentment, and recognizing how much I was hurting myself even when I was completely right.
Being right does not serve you.
Justice is a high level on the path of personal growth. But as Tal wisely said at the beginning, unity will always stand above justice. Each of us has to look within, step outside our own point of view for a moment, and understand that something much larger is happening.
If we keep dwelling on who is right, we will move toward ruin. We are already on that road. Our aim is redemption, and redemption cannot come while one person is right and another is wrong. It will come when we are united.
Unity means recognizing that even when someone has hurt me or done something wrong, it has already happened. It’s done. I cannot change the past or return to it.
Gili: I deliberately did not ask what happened. There could have been rape, betrayal, or some other form of harm. I didn’t avoid the details because I thought her story wasn’t serious.
But let me say something. We all play all the roles. Every one of us. Each of us will be the victim and also the one who victimizes. These cycles return again and again, in this life and in other lives.
There is a Hasidic story I love. A disciple once came to the Baal Shem Tov, the founder of Hasidism, and asked him, “What is the secret of reincarnation? I can’t make sense of it.”
The Baal Shem Tov pointed him toward a clearing in the forest. “Go and sit there until six o’clock,” he said. “Then come back and tell me what you saw.”
The disciple went to the clearing and watched. A wealthy, distinguished man arrived on a horse loaded with belongings. He unpacked, sat down to eat, bathed in the river, dressed, gathered his things, mounted his horse, and rode away, leaving his wallet behind.
A second man arrived. He too undressed and bathed in the river. As he sat drying himself, he saw the wallet. He picked it up and went on his way.
Then a third man came along. He seemed to be homeless and was looking for somewhere to wash, rest, and lay his head before nightfall. Just as he was about to enter the river, the wealthy man returned.
“Where is my wallet?” the wealthy man demanded. “You took it.”
“I didn’t take your wallet,” the third man replied. “I only just arrived.”
The wealthy man beat him mercilessly, left him sprawled on the ground, and went away.
At six o’clock, the disciple returned to the Baal Shem Tov. “This is what I saw,” he said. “What were you trying to show me?”
The Baal Shem Tov explained: “The first and second men had dealings in a previous life. The first man stole money from the second, and they went to a judge to decide between them. The amount in the wallet was exactly what the first man owed the second from that earlier life.”
The disciple asked, “Then why was the third man beaten?”
“He was the judge in that earlier case,” the Baal Shem Tov said. “He ruled wrongly.”
This is part of what we have to understand about “justice, justice shall you pursue.” Even justice is beyond our full comprehension. Life is like walking into a movie halfway through, watching for five minutes, leaving, and then drawing conclusions. We haven’t understood the story at all.
Even when something was done to you in the past and you don’t understand why, you may not be meant to understand. I can at least do my own inner work and ask what state of mind I was in and how I drew that event into my life.
But if it has already happened, it has happened. Digest it. Don’t keep trying to throw it up. The blow has already landed. Let’s move forward.
You may feel consumed by your anger, and I understand you deeply. I circled inside that same loop for years. Let me offer you my hand and tell you: what’s done cannot be undone.
If we want to connect with the Creator, come into unity, or simply feel better, we have to let go. You don’t know what you may have done to that person in another life. You don’t know how this cleared your karma. I recommend trying to release the anger.
Now, I’m not talking about future harm. If you know that someone is going to wrong you or take advantage of you, beautiful souls, that’s a different matter. Pay attention to what’s happening in your life and take responsibility for it.
If I allow someone to exploit me, I see a double wrong. First, I am allowing another person to exploit me, even though I too am a being within Creation. Second, I am allowing that person to commit a sin against me. That makes it wrong twice over.
So don’t let people harm or exploit you. Stay alert. Stay focused. But what has already been done is done, and if it happened, it had to happen.
Why? Because it happened. If it happened, it was the Creator’s will.
Now let’s move forward.
Don’t keep looking back. Remember what happened to Lot’s wife when she did: she became a pillar of salt. Stop looking behind you. Look ahead with hope and trust.
We often talk about raising our vibration and our energy. One thing that helps me do that and draw closer to the Creator is this: with almost any song I hear, I imagine that the Creator has dedicated it to me and is singing it to me.
If a song is clearly written in a woman’s voice and I don’t want to imagine God as female, I hear it as my own soul singing. When I hear Him singing to me, it is the Creator. In my mind, the Creator sings me songs.
That creates a loving, intimate connection between us. He dedicates songs to me, and I connect with Him. In that moment, what do I care about this person or that?
Tal: I was just about to ask which song you’re going to play for us.
Gili: I have a whole playlist called “The Creator and Gili.” I’ll share one of the songs I love most. Listen to how it begins. It is extraordinary. Let the song carry you. Every morning, I wake up and hear God singing it to me.